Copenhagen suggestions

Looking for eating suggestions in Copenhagen. I will be there for three nights. Doing Noma and geranium for two dinners, other than that I don’t have anything planned. No price range and open to everything.

I’m there next week; will report back. I’m in Sweden now and all the chefs eat at Sanchez for tacos on the weekend. I can get good tacos in LA but we’ll see. Will also have a rec for something traditional Danish.

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What I can tell you right now is that you will have a great time if you take a trip to Stockholm as well and dine at Frantzen. Dinner last night was top class; 3* easily and an absolutely fantastic experience.

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I was extremely close to booking a flight to Sweden to go to Faviken, but the trek to Faviken convinced me otherwise. I’ve heard nothing but great things about Frantzen, perhaps mid to end of summer :thinking:

I’m going to Faviken tomorrow. I made the trek to Jamtland area this morning and am dead tired after drinking too much at Frantzen last night. But, time it right and it doesn’t seem so bad - I’ll write down a list of steps for the best way to get there…it’s out of the way but seemingly not quite as hard to get to as the documentary dramatizes. It is hard to book the Faviken accommodations but you can easily do a hotel (that would be Copperhill Mountain Lodge in Are) and taxi over. After tomorrow night, I’ll have an opinion on whether it was all worth the effort to come out here!

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Yes, please let me know. Sounds like you did what I would have done if I went to Sweden.

CPH recommendations:

Iluka - for a simple but great raw bar. Genuinely live langoustines, great Gillardeau oysters, and the whole fish to share (we had brill). if you like wine I’d suggest a bottle of blanc de blancs (we got Larmandier Bernier), which goes nicely with all the seafood. Menu is small but good. Anchovies and the pike perch tartare are nice too, with the excellent Hart bakery bread. I didn’t see the hype for the Faroese sea urchin tho - we had these at Iluka and Noma and I do prefer Santa Barbara or Hokkaido urchin, instead.

At Noma, I preferred and was recommended to do a couple bottles - 1 champagne and 1 Chablis, instead of their wine pairing.

At Geranium, the supplemental caviar dish was one of the best (this time with toasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin broth, doesn’t sound intuitive but it went so well with the nuttiness of the Imperial Golden Oscietra).

For traditional smorrbrod, we were recommended to go to Palagaede. The herring was undoubtedly good but I don’t care for the traditional rye bread.

GEIST was OK - pretty plating and a stylish restaurant but it wasn’t very high on our lists.

108 avoid - we had a terrible meal there. Perhaps their corner simply with pastries is better, but we had an awful dinner with their tasting menu and classics.

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To get to Faviken, from Stockholm:

  • Fly from Stockholm Arlanda to Ostersund
  • (Book in advance) Flygtaxi bus to your stop/hotel. Note that Faviken accommodations are hard to book and they have more table seats at the restaurant than guest lodging. I’d recommend Copperhill Mountain Lodge. You can ski at Are.
  • Faviken, before your reservation date, will reach out to confirm transportation - a taxi is the best way to get there and the Björn Olsson company goes there almost daily. It’s not cheap but it’s better than renting a car.
  • they’ll have a return taxi waiting for you (dinner is quite long).
  • on nights (or mornings/afternoons) when you’re not at Faviken but rather in Are, eat at Krus, the casual wine bar by Faviken. Krus has some excellent pastries in the morning and dinner is good and simple.

Going to Faviken ended up being not cheap, due to all of the extra travel and transportation. It also proved hellaciously difficult on the day of but due to special circumstances - the world alpine ski championships were that day, so there were zero taxis available from Are back to my lodging (with no consistent bus schedule and no ride share), and I ended up walking about 6 km in -1 degree weather.

Was it worth it? Value is subjective but I’ll say I’m glad I went as I was always curious about it. Service was excellent, cooking skill was certainly there (the turbot was flawless and there were 0 missteps through ~25 courses), wine pairing was interesting and well executed, and it was an introduction to a style of food (Swedish) about which I know nothing. It’s not your normal tasting menu, that’s for sure. Also, the menu at Frantzen is (very good) is international luxury, not Swedish. Faviken, on the other hand, gave me a nice experience with Swedish cuisine.

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Damn, bro. The things we do for good food… Respect.

Dd Chef Magnus say Hi to you?

6 KM in -1 :thinking: TBH this has swayed me not to go to Faviken (Thank you), sounds like far too much of an inconvenience for my SoCal spoiled self. How was the seafood menu at Noma? That is disappointing to hear about the Faroe Island Uni.

Yes, he is the first one to greet guests when they open the door. Along with a good deal of the rest of the team.

I should clarify - most will not have to walk like I did. The walk was from Are (where I snowmobiled) to my lodging. Because it was the alpine world ski festival, things were unusually busy (This hadn’t happened since 12 years prior), and I could not get any transportation to my lodging, from where the taxi ordered by Faviken picked me up.

So, coming from lodging the taxi itself is maybe 30-40 minutes and Faviken arranges it to and from.

The biggest inconvenience is flying into a small airport (Ostersund) and taking the 1hr bus (Flygtaxi, ~$35) to your lodging.

I too have slogged north of the Arctic Circle in winter, but not for food (dogsled malfunction lol)…

Did Chef Rene greet you at Noma?

“Avant-garde” is how my dining companion described it. It doesn’t have a really normal flow - there were some tastings of clams, of cod, and crab. The use of acidity was slightly different to me - use of preserved or unripe berries is different than citrus I’m used to. Faroe Island uni was good but not my favorite - it did go nicely with the koji cake which was reminiscent of Saison’s uni “liquid toast.”

FWIW, I don’t think the Michelin ratings are accurate - Noma is imo just as much a 3* as anywhere else, and I’m glad I made the special journey. There were a couple of bites which were brilliant and I won’t ruin it for you but there’s one dish that is spectacular. I had Geranium for lunch and Noma for dinner and the two are quite different in cooking, menu, and approach, but both are 3* in my book…I guess I just don’t jive with Michelin much.

Noma as a restaurant is quite special and I can see it being a blueprint for the future in some ways.

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Meh I don’t really think much of guides/lists either. Didn’t even know the Michelin guide for the Nordic countries came out today.

Chef Rene was en route to Mexico, so unfortunately I didn’t get to say hi.

I did go dogsledding in Sweden, though - great experience. Made a 10 min walk to Undersaker Charcuteriefabrik, which was nice but I wouldn’t make a trek out for that specifically. Dogsledding was one of the best experiences of the trip!

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Not food-related but we’re going to be in Norway in three weeks. Maybe try dog sledding.

Finally found this place. We just stumbled into it. Every bit of it was super.

What I haven’t been able to find is a restaurant on the main drag, along the canal, in Nyhavn. It’s pretty close in, three story (I believe) with the dining room, quite lovely,on the second floor. It’s on a near corner. I know that’s totally vague but we had lunch there three times IIRC with fish/seafood each time and it was super.

We flew into Trondheim. From there, it’s an easy 2 hour drive to Are. This was combined with a larger Scandinavian trip, and almost every major Scandinavian city has direct flights to Trondheim.

Please clarify :slight_smile: Are you talking -1C or F?

Preparing for our upcoming trip to Norway, I stumbled across this Scandinavian general article to WOW food. Thought others might enjoy.

We have a res at Lysverket in Bergen, Norway, which is mentioned in this article.

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